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Why can't ze Germans fight as an auxiliary IG force? Then you would still be working on IG

 TheLionOfTheForest wrote:
Why can't ze Germans fight as an auxiliary IG force? Then you would still be working on IG

Need em for Bolt Action instead. Besides, I have plenty of other models to use for my IG army.

Small update, trying to come up with a way to tie together my army since it has a lot of different models in it. So I decided to get some test models roughly painted up to see how it looks in action. The "theme" is a red stripe or patch on the uniform of each soldier. The starship trooper MI wears theirs on their helmets, the highland guard and the dreamforge trooper wear it on their shoulder armor, and the veteran on the right has a small shoulder plate that is just straight red.



I know these pics look like crap in the forums, they look much better in the gallery I promise (I'm still a crummy painter though ) Just click on it and it should take you straight to the gallery, where they look a lot better.

Also, which would you guys prefer. I've been getting into the habit of painting up a mini or two a day, so obviously this would make for slow updating. Would you rather several small updates of 2-3 guys apiece, or one big one every couple of weeks where I just show everything I worked on? I'm still new to this kind of thing and I'm trying to learn how to do it in a way that's actually enjoyable to read.

Image removed.

Reds8n

Thats a little inappropriate for a family friendly forum isn't it?







I laughed anyway

It's a common image on another forum that I think I have seen MrMoustaffa frequent. Apologies anyway.

So, minor update while I'm working on the Cadian project to show you guys that I'm still alive. First of all, no finished Cadian models (yet) as I'm still settling on a paint scheme. I hope to have the two test models done by next weekend and then I'll have to make the difficult choice between the woodland and urban camo styles that I'm playing with.

In other news, my first Hungarian Puskas Szazad rifle platoon is finished! Based and everything! I know, it's incredible (ok not really) but it's the first time I've truly "finished" a model, basing and all. I learned a lot that I'm putting into practice with the Cadians, so if you guys spot any mistakes or screw ups please point them out so I know what not to do next time.



I'll try and take a better pic later. Need to make a new lightbox.

Also, here's the kitbashed Cadians in case you missed them. The two melta gunners missing helmets are the test models that are getting painted right now. The others are standing by until I settle on a scheme.



I was about to put in a huge order with vic after I put these together, but apparently Vic is making actual "Not original Cadians" sometime soon. So now I'm in wait and see as far as orders go. Oh well, gives me plenty of time to catch up on my massive amount of painting backlog.

Those parts from Vic mesh really well with the current Cadian line.

The guy with the shotgun who's sparking up looks awesome. Great pose, ouzes character and has just the right amount of kit.

Ok small update.

Been real busy with work over the past 2 months so I've not been doing a ton of painting. Slapped together a couple of test schemes for how I might paint my regiment, looking for some criticism to help me figure which way I should go. I know they don't look too hot right now, they're mainly just playing around with camo schemes so I can get an idea of how they would look at tabletop distance.

Think either of the schemes have potential? The woodland camo guy is pretty easy to do, but for some reason his camo just doesn't pop at tabletop distance, so maybe I need to use brighter colors. The arctic/urban camo seems to have some potential, but I'm kind of at a loss for how to paint the kit. I'm also having trouble making the camo look "natural" like the woodland camo does. It looks cheap, like a kid with fingerpaints did it. Maybe it was a result of me being so tired from work when I painted it, not really sure. I'd really appreciate some advice or tips here, kind of at a loss for where to go from here.




And here's a pic of the tanks in the background of the pic. Unlike my 40k stuff, I'm actually getting pretty good at painting 15mm. It's surprisingly easy, washes do a ton of work that you normally have to do by hand at 28mm and even a single layer of highlighting makes a huge difference. Also, I see the moldline on the Panther's barrel, I just haven't gotten around to fixing it yet.



From here, I plan on finishing the big cats, painting 5 lootas for my Ork killteam, and maybe painting up the Bolt Action Panzer IV in a very late war camo scheme. Sorry for the wait guys, life kinda threw me a curveball these past couple of months.

Finally learned how to take better pictures, and have some Mobile Infantry to show off. These guys will mostly get used as IG since I don't think anyone really plays the Starship Troopers game anymore.



Finally getting the hang of drybrushing. I've got some Victoria Lamb models up on the table next and will be using a lot of what I learned on these guys to good effect.

Quick update showing the direction I'm going with my Cadian models. This is the scheme I will be using for my Victoria Lamb models too. The scheme looks a bit weird up close, but at tabletop distance it looks pretty cool. Got the inspiration from the cover of an old IG codex and looking at old German WWII tank camo patterns. Still trying to decide if I want to add a camo pattern to the flak vests and the helmets. Might use a black or a dark brown, not sure yet.

That camo is pretty detailed. what'd you do to achieve that effect?

 Snrub wrote:
That camo is pretty detailed. what'd you do to achieve that effect?

Not as hard as it looks, just takes a bit of patience. I have shakey hands, so painting stuff like Tigerstripe was really hard for me. Turns out doing dozens of dots is pretty easy though!

STEP 1


First step, base coat the main color you want, in this case, khaki. Make sure you get a nice, clean coat here, and that you thinned your paint.

STEP 2


Next step, paint your secondary color (hull red in this case, think WWII German tank primer) in "blotches" across the model. The shape isn't important, as you will see in step 3/4. How you lay out the main blocks of secondary color is up to you. I wanted a "dense" pattern, so I made large blotches with fairly little space in between. I'd say the models are roughly 50/50 base and secondary at this point. If you'd like a quicker to paint scheme, go with smaller blotches, so it's roughly 75/25 base/secondary. Then, take your secondary color and do a bunch of tiny dots in the space in between the blotches. If you want a more open scheme, simply use less dots. I went ahead and showed a single guy at this step (The classy guy in the center with the cigar) The model will look really red at this point, don't worry, this will be fixed soon. Below we have a pic with all the guys dotted for completeness sake



STEP 3

Final step, you'll be going back to your primary color of choice for this (khaki in my case) The key here is to break up anything even remotely resembling a pattern on the model. Vary the size of the dots, let them "spill over" into one another, or across edges of the blotches. Just eyeball it, you'll eventually reach a spot where you're happy. The result leads for a pattern that can be seen fairly well at tabletop distance, yet still looks interesting up close.

Another good tip I found, you can cheat on your grunts and do a very basic dotting scheme. Save the fancy tricks for sergeants, commanders, specialists, stuff like that. The human mind is lazy, and will see what it expects to see if it's glancing across something, or viewing it at a distance. If it sees this crazy scheme on your more special minis that are more likely to be held up and inspected, it will associate the pattern it saw with ALL the models it sees on the table. May not fool a painting judge, but it'll fool the average gamer. You can see how I did this by going all out on the sarge and the cigar guy, whereas the grunts around them have a more simple scheme.

===============================================================================================================

So yeah, that's pretty much it. Really liking this scheme and it's really not hard to paint. Took me maybe 30 minutes total to paint, and part of that was just because I had to think about what the heck I was doing I especially like the scheme because it can even make these dopey looking plastic stormtroopers look cool.

I obviously need to settle on colors for kit and if I want a second color on the flakvests/helmets. I'll play around with a few things tonight and see what happens.

Oh that's a good tutorial. Easy enough too.

I might give that a go on one of my guardsmen.

Great looking camo! I should really try that some day.

Love the Germans also.

Now get back to painting!

And I understand how you feel about the plastic cadians. I have a ton to paint still, and I am just not into it.

Alright finished a few Stormtroopers. Sorry for the delay, came down with a sinus infection and was out of commission for a while, then got slammed with work while I was trying to make up missing work.

Anyways here you go. Nothing fancy, these guys are mostly just test models for me to figure out what to do on the far better metal Cadians and Victoria Lamb models that I'll be doing. The Cadians are about 80% done, so hopefully I'll have a completed pic of them up soon.



Painting these guys is a nightmare. The few details they have are so soft even a single coat of paint almost washes them out, and all the plastic models are the same pose (seriously, I have 15 of the little boogers, all in that same generic at rest stance) The metal ones look pretty good, and I'll probably use them to give some character to the Cadian squads since they blend in fairly well, but I doubt I'll use many of the plastic ones. What madman greenlit a box of mostly monopose guys like this must have been one sadistic SOB

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY MM's got a plog. Good man!

I like your paint scheme that you settled on finally, it IS really tough to make camo work for minis without them just disappearing, so those guys look like they'll come along well.

I've painted a bit of tartan myself in the past, my recommendation is to do build it up from stripes of varying thickness. for example, my kilt's this tartan:

and I went with a green basecoat, built up the other stripes on top. Not quite so detailed as this of course but it turned out well. I'll try and post pics sometime.

Other than that, just YAY keep it up. I need to get my plog online again... totally side-tracked by necromunda just now so I can at least put those guys up for the sake of content.

 Captain Roderick wrote:
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY MM's got a plog. Good man!

I like your paint scheme that you settled on finally, it IS really tough to make camo work for minis without them just disappearing, so those guys look like they'll come along well.

I've painted a bit of tartan myself in the past, my recommendation is to do build it up from stripes of varying thickness. for example, my kilt's this tartan:

and I went with a green basecoat, built up the other stripes on top. Not quite so detailed as this of course but it turned out well. I'll try and post pics sometime.

Other than that, just YAY keep it up. I need to get my plog online again... totally side-tracked by necromunda just now so I can at least put those guys up for the sake of content.

Yeah I'm really wanting to start working on the highland guard guys again, especially since I found an awesome way to get some cheap platoons http://www.victrixlimited.com/online_shop/product_info.php?cPath=32_33&products_id=55 . I figure I can use the bodies, heads, and kit no problem, and I have a ton of Vic's rifle arms already. Since my tax return comes soon, I'll be ordering a box and we'll see how it works out.

Also, minor update just to explain why you haven't seen anything recently. Got accepted for a new job in Minnesota, and I'm preparing for the move. Once I get there, there will be a couple of weeks of intense training and then from there my schedule will vary wildly.

What does this mean for you? Posting will continue like normal, since my updates happen without rhyme or reason to begin with

But yeah, on a serious note, don't expect a whole lot of updates until I'm settled in. I've got a few things almost finished that will probably get posted in the next couple of days, but we'll see what happens.

By the way, If anybody knows a good group to game with near Fergus Falls I'd be very appreciative.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

Yeah I'm really wanting to start working on the highland guard guys again, especially since I found an awesome way to get some cheap platoons http://www.victrixlimited.com/online_shop/product_info.php?cPath=32_33&products_id=55 . I figure I can use the bodies, heads, and kit no problem, and I have a ton of Vic's rifle arms already. Since my tax return comes soon, I'll be ordering a box and we'll see how it works out.

NO DON'T DO IT MM

(no idea why I'm so full of capitals tonight)

I picked up a box of them, and also used Perry Minis redcoats. The perry ones are superb, the victrix ones less detailed (think 2nd edition 40k main boxed game minis) but more importantly they're all genuine 28mm and extremely pose-limited. relative to 'heroic' 28mm they're teeny, and conversions just don't work because they're practically single-piece, with quite extensive moulding issues. Essentially, a Vic Minis fist is the size of a Victrix head. a victrix fist is smaller than an IG frag grenade.

My recommendation is save your cash for more vic minis stuff. Although I never did look to see if she does Plaid right...Yeah actually she's pretty good, surprise surprise

Make up your own mind though, but that's speaking from experience... I've still got my redcoats, and they look appropriately truescale against Marines, but they just look wrong on the 40k tabletop.

Should have posted these guys earlier, but just forgot about it.

They are 90% done, just need a matte spray finish and some flock or something to the bases. Might make some bricks and debris to make them look like they're fighting in a town.







I need to figure out a better way to do highlights on these guys. The details on the plastic infantry can be very soft on the uniforms and the highlighting techniques that work well on my metal models don't do much on these. The Mortar crew worked just fine for it though.

And another small little update related to the move. As I was packing up stuff I came across this guy, and I couldn't help but finish up the conversion and get him primed. Added a few little things, like a severed arm still gripping the throttle, a "trophy", and a really sweet hat. He's going to take forever to paint, but even if I only manage a decent paintjob, I think he'll look awesome when he's done.

Also, I figured out how to sculpt pants on these guys. Now that I've got that figured out I can really start working on these guys and knock out a unit or so easily.

Just a quick update to show you guys that I'm not dead. Thought you might like to see how things were going.



Right now I'm busy getting things roughly up to the same level so I can do them in batches, since I had a lot of half painted minis in a few different schemes. Hoping to have a command squad, some vets, and some conscripts good to go soon.

Oh hey nice command squad. Spotted a few of Vics bits scattered around in there.

 Snrub wrote:
Oh hey nice command squad. Spotted a few of Vics bits scattered around in there.

I'm really happy with how well the old Cadians and the Arcadians blend together. When you're looking at them up close you can tell they're a bit different, but from tabletop height they go together pretty well. Makes them look like a bunch of vets with a variety of equipment they've picked up over the years, which is cool too.

By the way the Victoria Lamb limited ed standard bearer is awesome. For you guys out there who put out a preorder for the Arcadians, you're in for a treat. They're going to be really cool models if this is anything to go by.

Hey, what do you know, I'm not dead yet! Despite Americorps best attempts to screw up my wrist and get me sick, I got some painting done recently. It's only Flames of War stuff at the moment, but stay tuned, I'm going to try and finish up some IG stuff this next weekend when I get back from this weeks spike trip.

First up, good ol' German infantry. These guys will be part of a Sturmkompanie that I'm building up. Sorry for the crappy pics, haven't found a good spot to take pics up here yet. I might have to just get a box, stick some white paper in it, and try to make a light box, or just find a good spot in daylight to take pics.



Next up, finished up a company of Zrinyi II's. These things are a blast to paint. Rivets just pop so easily it doesn't take much work to make them look good. Downside is rivets are an absolute pain to put decals over, and are ultimately the only thing I'm not happy about. I still need to clearcoat these guys, but overall they're done. Experimented with muddying them up, which you can't really see in the pics, but it looks awesome in person. Just used citadels Stirland Mud, but you could easily take any old brown paint, mix sand into it, and get the same result. Makes em look nice and weathered with a good wash or two.